


Like Spark and Wildfire

by lol-phan-af (lol_phan_af)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Flashbacks, Love Confessions, M/M, Multi, One Night Stands, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 13:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12558444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lol_phan_af/pseuds/lol-phan-af
Summary: Alex pressed the palms of his hands into the mattress, felt as they sank into the soft sheets beneath him and the memory foam that seemed to pull him in. He recognized the color of the sheets, and the room he was in. He'd been here before.When?"Hey," a voice whispered next to him, and Alex felt his heart drop through the floor. He knew where he was. "Why are you up so early?"





	Like Spark and Wildfire

The dim light of sunrise painted the walls of the bedroom pink, filtering in through thin white curtains covering a line of windows and set of glass doors across from where Alex wedged himself between two solid weights, neither of which he knew the names. He might know them, they might know him, but right now he's focused on the bright blushing color of the ceiling and how everything blurs together because he can't remember where he put his glasses.   
  
The body to his left shifted, grumbled something, but Alex still wasn't listening. He didn't _want_ to listen. With listening came recognizing and remembering and with those came the apologies he wasn't willing to give and the regret he wasn't willing to acknowledge.   
  
_Lafayette dragging him by the arm into the house of one of their fancy French friends, their long nails glimmering in the lights as Hercules walked ahead of them, amused at Alex's continuous attempt to escape. The insistence that this would be fun and that John wouldn't want him staying inside on his birthday like this. The promise that James and Thomas would be here and that, maybe, Alex could finally get the courage to make a move._   
  
There was the sneaking out before they noticed and the hope that whoever it was didn't know him, or didn't know how to contact him, or that they wouldn't remember him altogether. There was the crushing of hope that he'd wake up with people he actually wanted to be with, but so far the number of times that'd happened was one, and he was long gone now.   
  
Alex pressed the palms of his hands into the mattress, felt as they sank into the soft sheets beneath him and the memory foam that seemed to pull him in. He recognized the color of the sheets, and the room he was in. He'd been here before. _When_ ?   
  
"Hey," a voice whispered next to him, and Alex felt his heart drop through the floor. He knew where he was. "Why are you up so early?"   
  
_Thomas and James stopping their conversation, gazing at Alex like he was the only thing in the room. The booming speaker next to him working its way through his chest and into his bones, enough to feel painful, to leave him breathless. Lafayette disappearing like a phantom, nowhere to be seen, leaving Alex with no escape. Awkward smiling and forced conversation and another drink that tasted like sour enough to burn his tastebuds off in one sip.  
  
Lips pressed against his clothed shoulder, a question and an answer and catching a cab back to an apartment he'd only been to a handful of times.     
_   
He didn't look back at him, but he could _feel_ James staring, his eyes focused right on the crane tattoo on his left shoulder. Alex wanted to do something. Find his glasses, or his clothes, or ask why two people in a dedicated relationship with each other would ever decide to mutually take him home with them when they were drunk, but he found himself frozen, like James' eyes on the fucking crane tattoo on his left shoulder.   
  
"No reason," Alex muttered.   
  
James sighed. "I see you're not really up for small talk right now. I get it."   
  
"Sorry."   
  
"We can wake up Thomas, if you want, and talk about...this. Do you want to talk about this?"   
  
Alex pictured James' face, soft and still half asleep, heart racing in his chest trying to figure out ways to tell Alex that this was a one time thing, that it can't ever happen again. The soft crack of his knuckles, something he always did when he was nervous, and the refusal to meet Alex's eyes. Thomas appearing next to him, looking the same, turning as Alex nodded and left their apartment.   
  
_James' mouth, like spark and wildfire, against the skin of Alex's neck as Thomas struggled to unlock the door to their apartment building after shoving out of a cab, barely remembering to pay. Not looking at his keys but at Alex, pausing to kiss him. The first time Alex had been kissed in a long time, his lips soft and warm. Alex chased them as he pulled away. James replacing Thomas, lips over Alex's and the taste of vodka and vanilla. The door unlocking and Alex composing himself as they rushed past the doorman, who was awake enough to notice what was happening, but not enough to comment on it._   
  
"I kind of want to go home and forget about it, actually," he said, trying to find the easiest way out from under the covers. Crawling up to the top of the bed would be the safest bet, but then he'd have to face James, so he crossed the possibility off in his mind.   
  
"Oh." James slumped, and now Alex turned to him. His hands fumbled, eyes trained to his lap. Alex had to get out of here.   
  
"What?"   
  
"It's just, last night, you said some stuff, I don't know if you remember, I'm not sure how I remember, but-"   
  
"James."   
  
He coughed. "You said things that kind of gave me the idea that you'd _maybe_ want to stay, I don't know. I thought, y'know, leaving wouldn't be your thing, at least not with this."   
  
"What did I say?"   
  
_Alex giggling, echoing down the hallway, as Thomas handed over the responsibility to unlock the door this time. Thomas was different in a way Alex never expected, talked low in Alex's ear as James pretended he couldn't hear it, like he couldn't_ see _the blush creeping up Alex's face. Thomas spoke like he had all the time in the world, like they could stay out here forever and it wouldn't matter as long as he got to talk, and while Alex loved the sentiment, he just didn't agree._   
  
_Pushing Thomas into the apartment, Alex slid his hands down to Thomas' hips, kissing over the column of his throat and grinning when Thomas laughed in the empty silence that filled the room. James snuck past them, came back a few minutes later, looking the same minus his shirt, not that Alex was complaining._   
  
_"Hello, James," Thomas huffed, biting back a noise. Alex stood on his toes and kissed him before going back, unbuttoning Thomas' shirt so he could kiss over his collarbones._   
  
_"You're so beautiful, oh my god," Alex told him, undoing all of the buttons and pushing his shirt down off his shoulders. "I think I could spend the rest of my life in this position."_   
  
_James laughed, taking his hand and guiding him to their room. "Don't speak too soon."_   
  
"You, uh, babble sometimes, when you're drunk, so it was kind of extensive. I don't really remember it all, but a lot of it was comparing us to, like, the beauty of space, I think."   
  
"Oh my god." He blushed from the tips of his ears to his shoulders, hiding his face in his hands. In all honesty, he should've assumed he said something like that, as a general default to who he is as a person.   
  
"I thought it was cute," he muttered. "Thomas woke me up at, like, three in the morning to talk about it and how nice it was being with you." He cleared his throat, eyes darting around the room when Alex didn't answer. "You know we don't regret it, right? Like, we both knew what we were doing when we asked you to come home with us, we weren't just acting on impulse."   
  
Alex stared out at the skyline, blurry with his glasses still missing, the sun rising in front of him and gleaming in his eyes through the curtains. He could hear James breathing, trying to find something else to say, Thomas still asleep on the bed next to them. Alex wished he would've locked Lafayette out of his apartment last night, instead of going to that party, instead of going home with James and Thomas and getting stuck in this fucking mess.   
  
Thomas stirred next to him, arm flinging out to the empty space where Alex was before. "James, who are talking to?"   
  
"Alex, love," James answered, smiling, running his hand through Thomas' hair.   
  
"Oh, he's still here," Thomas muttered, sitting up. "He's a lot softer than you, y'know, his shoulders aren't like rocks."   
  
James shook his head, fond. "You're so rude to me."   
  
"I love you, though." Thomas looked back at Alex now, like he just remembered he was in the room. "Are we going to talk about this?"   
  
Alex swallowed. "After breakfast?"   
  
He couldn't see it, but he knew both of them were grinning at him.   
  
It was brighter in the kitchen, and nice to finally be able to see after Thomas found his glasses on the floor by his nightstand. James' shirt covered his hands, falling all the way down to his mid thigh. He felt immensely comfortable like this, forgetting for a moment how his heart felt like it was about to burst out of his chest from how nervous he felt.   
  
Thomas and James moved in a sort of practiced way, with James leading and Thomas following in a sleepier state. It made sense, Alex supposed, that two people who have been friends for so long and loved each other for so long have that kind of thing, to finish each other's movements and to move with one another like second nature. It made something shift in Alex's heart, how much he wanted to be a part of this, how much he wanted to be a part of _them_ .   
  
Alex couldn't bring himself to eat, he realized, as he picked at the scrambled eggs in front of him with his fork. His mouth wouldn't open, teeth clenched together hard enough to hurt, tongue refusing to fit around the words in his mouth that he'd never been able to say before.   
  
"So," Thomas starts, and both James and Alex glance up at him, "about the fucking."   
  
Alex choked on his own tied tongue, James sighed loud enough that their neighbors pounded on the wall next to them. Thomas grinned like an asshole, perfectly aware that he started the conversation in the _worst_ possible way.   
  
"Yeah, what about _that_ ?" James asked, looking up at the ceiling.   
  
"What are we doing about it?"   
  
"What do you _want_ to do about it?" Alex bit off a cold piece of egg from his plate and grimaced, but ate it so they didn't notice.   
  
James looked at him, neck cracking with how fast he moved. "Darlin', that's not our decision."   
  
"What?"   
  
"I told you we weren't acting on impulse when we decided to take you home with us. We've been planning to talk to you, or show you how we feel for months now. I think it's safe to say we already made our decision on this, but you haven't, or at least you haven't told us anything."   
  
"Oh, I-"   
  
Thomas cleared his throat. "And if you don't, if this isn't what you want, you can tell us. Please don't try and skirt around it or avoid saying that you don't want this as much as we do. We get that sleeping with us might have been a way to, like, let off steam of something, so if that's all it was, then be honest with us about it."   
  
Alex followed James' arm as it moved under the table, could almost sense the movement of him grabbing Thomas' hand. He probably moved his thumb in slow circles across his skin, James seemed like the kind of person who would do something like that.   
  
He wanted to say a million things, to confess and to fall into their rhythm, to run out of the apartment and come back when he was ready, with a prepared speech, and everything would be okay. He wanted to crawl across the table and pull both of him to him, bury himself in their arms and never leave. He wanted a lot of things.   
  
_Searching for his glasses in the blurry and dark bedroom, James and Thomas whispering on either side. His shirt was somewhere on the floor, maybe, and his jeans were somewhere else,_ maybe. _His glasses weren't with his jeans or shirt. He was so stressed out._   
  
_"You can stay, you know," James told him, Thomas kissing over his shoulder. "For the night, if you want."_   
  
_"Are you sure?"_   
  
_"Of course we are. Plus, it would be nice having someone so warm here," Thomas added, nuzzling into the softness of Alex's skin, trying to escape the chill that swept across his bare chest._   
  
_Alex stared around the room again, couldn't see a thing. "Okay, just as long as it's okay with both of you."_   
  
_They didn't respond as he laid back down, cuddled closer to him and fell asleep together._   
  
"I do want to be with you," Alex muttered, couldn't get himself to speak up any louder. "I've wanted to fucking _be with you_ for a year and a half now, I just never thought you'd ever want me back. I guess last night was my way of _showing_ you that, because I've been too scared to tell you. Even though, I guess, I did end up telling you some stuff-"   
  
"Oh! The stuff about us outshining the stars and putting the galaxy to shame? That was poetic, I loved it, actually. I kind of hoped you do it again, if you ever came back." Thomas shoved more food in his mouth, face bright red as James flinched, pulling his hand away and rubbing at his now-crushed hand.   
  
"I think I'd be more than willing," Alex said. "Both to come back and to compare you to nature."   
  
Thomas' face lit up, brighter than the sun. "Really? You mean that?"   
  
"If you'll have me"   
  
"Of course, of course we will," James whispered, and Alex beamed at him.   
  
"Then yes, I'll stay."

**Author's Note:**

> ,mnmsdn,smdn
> 
> tumblr: lol-phan-af


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